Test Subject E 0057
by A Dead End
Summary: All a test subject can hope for is to be a success, anything else is too much asked. But tell that to a child whose only wish is for happiness, even if he doesn't quiet understand what it means.


**Disclaimer: I own nothing, just the brain this text came out of.**

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><p>Test subject E-0057 of the Super Human Research Institute – Super Soldier Research<br>Date of Birth: February 27th  
>Age: 8 and 11 months<br>Height: 137 cm  
>Weight: 26 kg<br>Eye colour: Blue-grey  
>Hair colour: Grey-green<p>

He was a boy without a name, without an identity, just numbers and letters, facts on a hard drive. He had been designated E-0057, but was often been referred to 57 for short.

The child had no recollection of anything that had happened before. All that he knew was the white walls around him that trapped him in a cruel fantasy. This was the whole world to him, small, confined and lonely. He'd seen a few other children pass him by when he was taken to some kind of lab. They muttered incoherent phrases under their breath, their eyes weren't focused and the way they moved was erratic. An armed guard always escorted them, like they did him. He was afraid he was staring into his future. Was that how he was meant to turn out as well? He should have been looking forward to it, becoming something more than he was. But he didn't want to. 57 had heard so many people screaming through the night that it made him afraid, scared of what was going through their minds to make them act like that.

The boy lay onto the hard floor. It felt safer than the bed, it was solid and firm. It wouldn't devour him in the night. He'd already been seeing nightmares about how his own room turned on him, becoming dark and twisting everything inside out. There wouldn't be any air to breathe, he wouldn't be able to move or call for help. And then he'd hear others screaming, calling out for something, but no-one listened to them. They never stopped. When one voice quieted down, another one was raised in its place. 57 had learnt to identify each person by their cry, they were his only comfort in this place.

Sometimes the boy would believe there was something beyond the walls of the complex. He would imagine a quiet world where he could meet other people. There were no cloaked masked men to tie him down and prod him with needles till he was sore all over, no more screaming and no more hurt. Maybe a place that was warm and colourful. Maybe… it didn't hold any sustenance in it, just an empty promise of what might not even exist.

The doctors had been conversing about performing an operation on the boy, something about taking him to the next stage of the experiment. Apparently many before him had failed, and they were hoping he would be different. It wasn't that he didn't want to be a success, but could he trust these people? Trust, like many other concepts, including friendship, kindness and loyalty were completely foreign to him. They existed somewhere outside the facility in a world along with something called happiness. He'd heard that term somewhere, but wasn't sure what it meant. Maybe this experiment could bring him closer to it. If that was so, then he was curious to find out.

It was on a day that each considered his or her creation date, February 27th, when they came for him. Two large guards invaded his room with a doctor. 57 backed into the corner of his room, not sure what they were going to do to him. There were rumors of when one reached a certain age, something was done to change them indefinitely. This, he reckoned, was what they were talking about. Were they going to make him happy, or was he going to fail too? The uncertainty that the children lived in was unhealthy, but they had become accustomed to it. People have the tendency to adapt to the conditions they are forced under and this was no exception. 57 didn't put up a fight, by now he'd learnt that it only brought more pain. He was escorted down many hallways into a room he had never seen before, a room next to a flight of stairs up and one down. That meant there was more to the complex than just what he'd seen. It was a larger building with several levels. The curious boy gazed intently at the steps leading to a world he knew nothing of. Soon everything went black.

57 woke up back in his room on the bed. He was comfortable there for the first time since he remembered. He wasn't afraid anymore. But something was very different, he felt like he had been cut in half on the inside, as ridiculous as it sounded. Shifting around, the boy realized he could only see with his other eye. Feeling his head, there was a bandage wrapped around, but why? 57 winced when his hand traced over the tender skin under his green hair. He sat up in his white gown and looked around the room – the usual cries had died down. The boy didn't understand. They couldn't disappear just like that. Then there, in the quiet that he was savoring, was a soft voice. It called out to anyone, anyone that might hear. Walking out of his room, there were no guards, the halls were empty. Something had changed, the corridors were different. Had he been taken to another alternate world via the stairs? Following the small voice, he entered a room similar to his own. In the middle was a capsule that encased a young girl roughly his age. 57 leaned on the glass separating them for a closer look. She had hair as white as the walls, and solemn lonely eyes that reflected how he'd felt up until that morning. She couldn't talk or even move, but for some reason he could hear her quiet words. Marie Parfacy, she became the first person he would ever remember truly knowing. He had answered her call, but she had nothing to call him by. 57 wasn't a name.

"Then, I'll give you a name…" Marie stopped to think for a brief moment, until if felt like she began to smile though her body never moved. "Allelujah." She hummed, pleased with her choice. "It's the word you use to give thanks to God."


End file.
